BRAZIL: Workers Party Survives Scandal Relatively Unscathed and Unchanged

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Analysis by Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 19 2005 (IPS) - The election of a new leadership for Brazil’s governing leftist Workers Party (PT) indicates that despite the catastrophic predictions, political activity will continue to follow much the same track as before, with only minor adjustments arising from this year’s explosive corruption scandal.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva remains “a strong contender for re-election” in October 2006, and the election campaign will serve to regroup the left, which did not undergo the drastic fragmentation that many had predicted, said political scientist Fabiano Santos, a professor at the University Research Institute in Rio de Janeiro.

Consequently, the elections will essentially come down to a contest between social democracy, represented by the PT – “although its members don’t acknowledge that” – and a coalition of conservative forces, with some changes in the “electoral landscape,” Santos told IPS.

These changes will be reflected in the alliance backing the PT, with greater participation by lesser leftist political forces like the socialists, communists and labour democrats.

At the same time, a much smaller role will be played by the conservative parties that formed part of the governing coalition after the last elections, given the serious divisions they have suffered as a result of the current political crisis, said Santos.

The radical leftists who left the PT to build up the ranks of the new Party of Socialism and Liberty (PSOL) are few in number and carry scant political weight, he added.

The results of the PT internal elections have left the party’s leadership in the hands of the so-called Majority Camp that has guided its course since 1995, despite the role played by this bloc in the bribery scandal that has shaken up the Lula government since June.

The election of former labour minister Ricardo Berzoini as the new PT president confirms the continued predominance of the centrist, pragmatic Majority Camp, although by a narrower margin than in the past.

The direct election process through which the PT membership chose new national, state and local party executives constituted a show of force that surprised even the party’s leaders, given the overwhelming participation of the rank and file.

In the initial voting on Sept. 18, when 825,461 PT members in 4,638 municipalities had the chance to cast their ballots, voting turnout averaged 40.7 percent.

The Majority Camp captured 41.9 percent of the votes, thereby earning 34 seats on the 81-member national executive directorate.

But because the bloc failed to take an absolute majority of votes, Berzoini was forced to face a run-off for the party’s presidency on Oct. 9, which he won with a mere 51.6 percent of the 228,175 valid ballots cast.

This hair’s breadth victory reflects the growth in strength of the party’s more leftist wing, which backed Raúl Pont, former mayor of the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre.

Be that as it may, the dominant centrist current will continue to control the PT, with the support of other moderate groups that back the conservative economic policies adopted by the Lula administration and alliances with right-wing forces that gave rise to the corruption scandal, lawmaker Chico Alencar told IPS.

Alencar is a longtime PT stalwart who left the party last month, joining with other dissidents who founded the PSOL.

The corruption scandal that brought down a number of cabinet ministers and the top leadership of the PT was unleashed by accusations launched by a former ally, Roberto Jefferson, a member of Congress and president of the Brazilian Labour Party at the time.

Jefferson, who was himself implicated in a bribery scheme he allegedly set up in Brazil’s state-run post office, struck back by accusing the PT of paying off allied right-wing legislators for their support on key congressional votes.

Concrete evidence was subsequently uncovered of at least 55 million dollars distributed among dozens of lawmakers and party leaders.

Congressional expulsion hearings began Monday against 11 lawmakers accused of taking bribes. Two others resigned beforehand in order to retain the right to run in next year’s elections, because if they are expelled as a result of the hearings, they will be banned from running for public office for eight years.

It is hoped that the hearings will take some of the pressure off Lula, who many suspect of participation in or at least knowledge of the bribery scheme. “The worst is already over,” Lula himself declared, echoing the opinions of numerous analysts.

Caretaker PT president Tarso Genro, a former minister of education, maintained that the internal elections demonstrated the party’s continued vitality and the survival of a “democratic socialist left,” as well as the determination to “refound” the party, “combining democracy and utopia.”

While he could easily be accused of exaggerating, the facts show that unless any new revelations of corruption emerge, the PT has successfully weathered the storm that many predicted would be its downfall. The fallout of the scandal has been limited to the desertion of eight members of the lower house, out of a total of 91, and one senator, in addition to the possible expulsion or resignation of another seven.

The winds of the scandal stripped the PT of its claim to ethical purity, which will likely cost the party votes in middle-income sectors. Nevertheless, any losses will be largely compensated by the effects of social programmes like the Family Grant plan, which will provide direct financial assistance to 11.2 million families next year, ensuring strong support for Lula and his party among the poorest, most disadvantaged segments of the population.